A German prosecutor believes Madeleine McCann died soon after she was allegedly kidnapped by Christian Brückner.
Speaking with UK newspaper The Times, prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said his belief is Brückner "relatively quickly" killed Madeleine not long after abducting her.
Madeleine, who was three years old at the time, vanished from an apartment in Portugal in 2007 where she was on holiday with her family. Parents Kate and Gerry were dining at a nearby bar and Madeleine was gone when they returned.
Her disappearance sparked an international search, with missing posters of the little girl's face papered across the world and celebrity appeals for information that could help track her down and bring her abductors to justice.
Brückner, recently identified as the latest suspect in the case, was believed to be residing near the resort where Madeleine vanished.
German police said last week the suspect lived in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007 and that he worked in the catering industry while also burgling holiday flats and drug dealing. The suspect is currently in detention over a different matter.
Joaquim Braz, 50, who lives near Praia da Luz, told Reuters he remembered the suspect.
"I didn’t like him very much," Braz said. "I remember him very well but he kept to himself".
Wolters told The Times he believes Brückner killed her before going on to commit other offences.
But in an earlier interview with Sky News, Wolters admitted there wasn't enough hard evidence for Brückner to go on trial.
"The hard evidence we don't have, we don't have the crucial evidence of Madeleine McCann's body," Wolters said.
Lenta Johlitz, who used to work with Brückner, told ITV News he once told her Madeleine was dead.
"There was this one situation where we sat in his living room and spoke about Maddie.
"He said very loudly, 'the child is dead'," Johlitz told ITV. "That was the only situation where I look back and ask myself, 'Why did he say that back then'?"
Reuters / Newshub.
